Produced together for the first time, The Red Letter Plays: Fucking A & In the Blood explode our ideas of love, society, sex, and power with wit and fearlessness. In these modern day remixes of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic novel The Scarlet Letter, Pulitzer Prize-winner Suzan-Lori Parks conjures two distinct interpretations of Hester, Western literature’s most famous adulteress.

In Fucking A, Hester Smith, the revered and reviled local abortionist, hatches a plan to buy her jailed son’s freedom—and nothing will deter Hester from her quest. In this wild-eyed blend of story and song, directed by Obie Award-winner Jo Bonney (Father Comes Home From the Wars), Hester’s branded letter A becomes a provocative emblem of vengeance, violence, and sacrifice.

In the Blood’s Hester La Negrita is a penniless mother of five condemned by the men who love her, in this play hailed byThe New York Times as “…a work of art. You will leaved thrilled, even comforted by its mastery.” Hester turns to former lovers, friends, and the institutions meant to support her, only to be spurned by them all with devastating consequences, in this new production directed by Obie Award-winner Sarah Benson (An Octoroon).